A New Life for Chubbs?

Last year during Christmas break my teammates and I took a random trip to Petco purely out of boredom. We drove 30 minutes down a winding, Pennsylvania road to the Butler Plaza pet store. As we walked through the sliding, glass doors we made our way to the stray cats positioned in separate, small cages stacked on top of each other. Most of them were sleeping but I have to admit, they were cute. When we finished gawking over the kittens, we traveled to the next isle to see the fish, turtles and snakes. This isle wasn’t as exciting, however, so we quickly moved to the guinea pigs, chinchillas, ferrets and mice. That’s when I saw Chubbs.

She was a brown, chubby guinea pig sitting with her side against the glass. All the other guinea pigs were running around, eating food or playing with each other but this guinea pig just sat calmly out of the way. She looked so furry and cute and I knew I wanted to hold her. When I picked her up, she crawled up my arm and burrowed in my neck (it was love at first sight). Moral of the story, I left Petco with a guinea pig that day.  I named her Chubbs and it was undoubtedly the most spontaneous purchase of my life.

Chubbs became famous pretty quickly.  People always wanted to hold her and play with her and it inevitably became the joke of my team that I had a pet guinea pig. On April Fools day, a few of my friends stole Chubbs. They made it look like I had accidently left her cage door open after feeding her and of course, I spent the entire day checking every crack and crevice of my apartment thinking she was loose. Later that night, I found out that she had actually been kidnapped. She may not be the conventional pet, but Chubbs has brought me a lot of laughs to say the least.

When I transferred schools I knew I probably wouldn’t be able to take Chubbs with me. The apartment I’m staying in doesn’t allow pets so she currently resides at my home in Akron. My mom feeds her every day and cleans out her cage and I love getting to see her when I go home. Still, I know she’s not getting proper attention and it’s not fair to shove the responsibility on my mom. A few weeks ago, my mother told me that one of her students has been dying for a pet guinea pig and she would be able to give Chubbs a suitable home. Now, I’m faced with the decision to keep Chubbs or give up my first pet.